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Subscribe to RSSNEW YORK — Colorado doctors mostly support local efforts to give kids their flu shots and other vaccines at school — but they also have misgivings, a new study shows.
In particular, they threw more support to school flu shots, versus other vaccinations. They were also worried about how school vaccinations would affect their record-keeping and their bottom line.
The study, reported in the journal Pediatrics, looked at doctors' feelings on so-called school-located vaccination — one-day "clinics" where local health officials and school districts offer kids flu shots or other vaccinations.
The programs are seen as a potential way to bring more kids up-to-date with government-recommended vaccinations.
Since 2010, the U.S. has advised nearly all Americans age six months and up to get an annual flu shot.
Even though only a minority follow that advice — about 43 percent of Americans did during the 2010 flu season — that still translates to more than 100 million people clambering for the flu vaccine within the space of a few months.
"To get all of those people into the doctor's office is impossible," said Dr. Judith Shlay of the Denver Public Health Department, the senior researcher on the new study.
In Denver, a project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has provided in-school flu shots, as well as vaccinations recommended for older kids and teenagers: the meningococcal meningitis vaccine, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and the "Tdap" vaccine against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (whooping cough).
For the current study, Shlay's team wanted to know how pediatricians and family doctors felt about school vaccinations.
Of the 584 doctors who responded to the survey, most supported in-school flu shots.
About two-thirds were in favor of their privately insured patients getting the shot at school, while around three-quarters liked the idea for their patients on Medicaid.
A financial consideration likely factors in there, since the federal government provides free vaccines for kids on Medicaid, but doctors may have a tough time being reimbursed for the administration costs. Shlay's team found less support for kids getting other vaccinations at school. Half of pediatricians and 59 percent of family doctors were for it when it came to patients with private insurance; 59 percent and 67 percent, respectively, supported it for Medicaid patients.
One concern was that if older kids get all their vaccinations at school, they won't come in for routine checkups. Many doctors also were worried they'd have a hard time keeping their patients' records straight.
"If we give vaccinations in schools and the doctor doesn't know about it, then that's a concern," Shlay said.
There is a way to address that, though. Colorado, and all other U.S. states, have computerized immunization registries that offer a consolidated record of children's vaccination histories.
"That's a really important tool," Shlay said.
But of the doctors in this survey, about one-third were not participating in Colorado's immunization registry.
If more providers get involved in state registry systems, that could help ease worries over record-keeping, Shlay's team writes.
Many doctors were also concerned about their bottom line. Most were at least somewhat worried that if an unpredictable number of patients got their vaccinations at school, their offices would have a tough time estimating how many vaccine doses to have in stock.
Shlay said that's a legitimate concern, since the vaccines for older kids and teens are expensive. (The retail price of the HPV vaccine, for example, is about $130 per dose.)
"If (doctors) end up with unused, expired vaccines, that's a problem," Shlay said. The potential waste, she added, is a concern not only for doctors, but for everyone who needs the vaccines.
So that may mean doctors' offices will need to be more careful in terms of inventory, Shlay noted.
But even if your child gets vaccinated at school, that's not a replacement for checkups with the doctor.
"There's more to health and health care than just vaccines," Shlay noted.
It's important, she said, for doctors, public health officials and schools to all work together to make school vaccination programs effective — and, in the bigger picture, get all kids their appropriate vaccinations.
A government study last year found that that goal is fairly far off: Only 49 percent of U.S. teens had received the first of three doses of the HPV vaccine, while 63 percent had gotten the meningitis vaccine and 69 percent the Tdap shot.
"School-located vaccine programs are an important approach to augment vaccine delivery," Shlay said.
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The only reason they are having mixed reactions is: They are losing money because they are not able to bill the patient or the insurance company for an office visit, and vaccine.
To all you vaccine conspiracy theorists, note that doctors in this article are only questioning the location of vaccine administration -- NOT whether they support vaccines. The vast majority of licensed American physicians support giving patients the full spectrum of recommended vaccinations on schedule.
Those of you who foolishly avoid vaccines are needlessly harming potentially hundreds of other Americans and causing a resurgence of diseases nearly eradicated before this hysterial began. Vaccines do NOT cause autism, nor do they give you the disease they're made to prevent. Yes, a very small percentage of recipients have side effects, but studies prove that these are far outweighed by the benefit of immunizations.
And yes, I am medically trained...
All the Chicken Littles below should be relegated to the "Ignore this author" bin.
All the Chicken Littles below should be relegated to the "Ignore this author" bin.
For your specific benefit, then, I'll repeat the post I made below:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20049118-10391695.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody
For all those who've declared the autism-vaccine debate over - a new scientific
review begs to differ. It considers a host of peer-reviewed, published theories
that show possible connections between vaccines and autism.
The article in the Journal of Immunotoxicology is entitled "Theoretical
aspects of autism: Causes--A review." The author is Helen Ratajczak,
surprisingly herself a former senior scientist at a pharmaceutical firm.
Ratajczak did what nobody else apparently has bothered to do: she reviewed the
body of published science since autism was first described in 1943. Not just one
theory suggested by research such as the role of MMR shots, or the mercury
preservative thimerosal; but all of them.
Ratajczak's article states, in part, that "Documented causes of autism
include genetic mutations and/or deletions, viral infections, and encephalitis
[brain damage] following vaccination [emphasis added]. Therefore, autism
is the result of genetic defects and/or inflammation of the brain."
The article goes on to discuss many potential vaccine-related culprits,
including the increasing number of vaccines given in a short period of time.
"What I have published is highly concentrated on hypersensitivity, Ratajczak
told us in an interview, "the body's immune system being thrown out of balance."
The article then goes on to another scientist who then tries to refutes Ratajczak claim by pointing out that the currently prevailing medical opinion is not that vaccines cause autism, but do instead (very rarely, one hopes) cause brain damage.
Get it? BRAIN DAMAGE?
And you wonder why the public is beginning to panic about vaccinations?
Those of you who foolishly avoid vaccines are needlessly harming potentially hundreds of other Americans and causing a resurgence of diseases nearly eradicated before this hysterial began.
Oh? Like this latest round of whooping cough, which is hitting the previously-vaccinated more than the unvaccinated?
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/12/13834420-whooping-cough-vaccine-loses-punch-too-fast
So? Who cares. Maybe that makes you feel superior.
Your logic is flawed. You are fallaciously assuming that not vaccinating equals having a disease AND spreading the disease to medically fragile person or vaccinated person.
My children are not vaccinated AND they are NOT sick.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/03/hype-vs-evidence-of-influenza-deaths.aspx
Selling Big Mortality Numbers to Sell Flu Vaccine
Is It 200,000 Influenza Hospitalizations or 37,000?
Counting Influenza Deaths & A Whole Lot More
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_04.pdf
2010 Influenza and pneumonia (J09–J18)3Influenza .. . . Number of deaths
Pnuemonia....50,003
Influenza......494
All vaccines should be available within school for all children free of charge.
The cost is unimportant when measured against the potential for a sudden horrific outbreak.
It is almost as if society is regressing. These vaccines basically saved modernity and millions upon millions of lives.
To lose their benifits because of greed and fear is unacceptable.
The main reason for most of the vaccines is money. My kids aren't getting them. Do the research on other countries. Why do we have such a high cancer rate, autism, and allergies?
Chuck, you are so blinding dumb that it hurts just talking to you. Do you own fracking research at non kook medical web sites and you'll see that your talking out of your rump.
Why don't you look into more of these vaccines before you accuse someone of being blinding dumb? Can you explain why some people catch a disease even after they got a vaccine that was supposed to prevent it? Or why many diseases started to decline on their own long before the vaccine was introduced? Maybe YOU'RE the one talking out of your rump.
My grandson has autism and the only thing that makes sense is a common environmental cause. How safe are the vaccines? Are too many administered at the same time?
Oh, give me a fracking break. You are a plain liar Mecha. Polio diminished were people were vaccinating and remained endemic elsewhere. You do realize that people until the late 1890s barely knew anything about transmission of diseases. Just knowing how they were transmitted greatly reduced the size and duration of epidemics by following proper physical isolation and containment techniques. But that wasn't enough, diseases like Polio who had no vaccines continued to be endemic despite these precautions because a carrier could be asymptomatic (in fact many carriers of all diseases don't present any visible symptoms).
After the Polio vaccine arrived, it only stayed endemic in countries with no vaccination programs. In the last few years, because of vaccination, Polio is close to be eradicated (86 cases this year down from 300000 in the late 90s). The countries that present the biggest difficulties are those that area that refuse vaccines for ideological or political reasons (mostly isolated islamists in Nigeria and Pakistan). So, whoever refuses vaccines are in good company. Anyone who thinks vaccines are a myth, just have to look at the Polio and smallpox vaccination campaigns to see how wrong they are.
Ya know when I was a kid we received vaccines in school and all was good. If they are mandatory and ordered by the government then vaccines should be free.
Greed is the only reason for not doing this. "Reactions" is a poor reason to abstain simply beccause those giving the shots should be medical professionals.
There are times when I have NO tolerance for the masses-----this will probably be one of those times.
I went to a retail store for a flu shot, and my insurance was charged for the vaccine and the administration of the vaccine. However, if this vaccine was self-paid, I would have been charged only for the vaccine.
Let's fix this line, shall we:
"School-located vaccine programs are an important approach to augment
vaccine deliverythe profits of Big Pharma,"There. That makes more sense.
Most vaccines are cheap have rasor thin margins, big pharma makes a lot more money from just about any other type of medication : Viagra alone gives them 100 times more profit.
But the government is not trying to mandate that all infants, toddlers, young boys and young girls, teenagers, adults, and seniors be given doses and booster doses of viagra. Maybe that's a thought. Viagrate everyone, instead of vaccinate. Oh wait....maybe we should keep that quiet or Pharma may want to do that next.
You basically sidestepped the answer completely. We were talking about the conspiracy that the big pharma boogeyman makes all this just for money when in fact if it were them, they would walk away from the vaccine business altogether.
Big Pharma will lobby the government till they have every human on the planet taking there drugs. These drugs have more side affects than benefits. Do some research see how they are made and whats really in them? And do they have our health in mind or just profit or mayb even a agenda that does not benifit the public in any way!
The Sheep are waking up!
If not for vaccines, tens of millions would be dead of maimed, smallpox alone killed tens of millions before vaccination eradicated the disease, so furnish proof other than your moron conspiracy web sites or shut your yapper!
Keira, vaccinations can cause autism.
No it cannot. One paper by someone paid by a lawyer for this cause said that; and the guy was then convicted of fraud and got his medical license suspended, while 1000 papers say that it is not the case. Like I said, proof of what bull you advance or shut the yapper.
No it cannot.
Yes, it can.
Read the posts I put on here about current research going on before accusing others of lying or ignorance.
Dr. Walker-Smith won has appeal and has been vindicated.
while 1000 papers say that it is not the case.
There are not 1000 papers that say vaccines cannot or do not cause autism. In fact there are NONE. No scientific study could be designed to absolutely prove that.
Hannah Poling. DX autism after vaccination. Awarded by the govnt. Case sealed.
Keira Desbiens must work for big pharma...Keira maybe YOU NEED TO DO THE RESEARCH! No more vaccines in this household!
I think Pharma would do well to address the ever-increasing concerns of the public, further fueled by claims such as this one:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20049118-10391695.html?tag=contentMain;contentBody
For all those who've declared the autism-vaccine debate over - a new scientific
review begs to differ. It considers a host of peer-reviewed, published theories
that show possible connections between vaccines and autism.
The article in the Journal of Immunotoxicology is entitled "Theoretical
aspects of autism: Causes--A review." The author is Helen Ratajczak,
surprisingly herself a former senior scientist at a pharmaceutical firm.
Ratajczak did what nobody else apparently has bothered to do: she reviewed the
body of published science since autism was first described in 1943. Not just one
theory suggested by research such as the role of MMR shots, or the mercury
preservative thimerosal; but all of them.
Ratajczak's article states, in part, that "Documented causes of autism
include genetic mutations and/or deletions, viral infections, and encephalitis
[brain damage] following vaccination [emphasis added]. Therefore, autism
is the result of genetic defects and/or inflammation of the brain."
The article goes on to discuss many potential vaccine-related culprits,
including the increasing number of vaccines given in a short period of time.
"What I have published is highly concentrated on hypersensitivity, Ratajczak
told us in an interview, "the body's immune system being thrown out of balance."
The article then goes on to another scientist who then to refutes Ratajczak claim by pointing out that the currently prevailing medical opinion is not that vaccines cause autism, but do instead (very rarely, one hopes) cause brain damage.
Seems to me that everyone needs to stop labeling those with concerns for their children as tin-foil-hat-wearing morons and look at the information out there for themselves.
of course some vaccines are neccesary but we have gone from 10 to 36 since 1983. Just how many times can we "jump start" the human immune system without causing any harm? There have been many many many drugs removed from the market because of side effects, some deadly. Why are all vaccines only deemed as if there are no bad side effects. we must have some very important vaccines but we should also question when capitalism comes into play. Auto immune diseases are at an all time high.
They are not deemed to have no side effect (with the very high number of vaccinations, hundreds of millions, world wide during 50 years) the side effects are well understood. The possible side effect are just much smaller than the potential benefit to the individual and society as a whole. People don't remember how it was in the pre-vaccination era or they wouldn't even be having this discussion. A high level of vaccination also helps people with week immune systems (infants and elders), which cannot benefit from vaccines.
"There's more to health and health care than just vaccines," Shlay noted.